I wanted to see the game through to the end but there was some information that was left out and made it a bit tougher. For example, I assumed that the fishing option was the best way to make money? When I would sell a bulk of fish, it seemed to not have a consistent amount of money I was receiving. It would be nice to know how much I made after selling (it'd also be nice to be able to sell all fish at once).
I managed to get $491 from fishing, so I went to the mine to get the last $9 since the mine seemed to give me $1 every time despite saying that it would be a random amount. Unfortunately, when you interact with the mine, it seems to set a variable instead of adding to it. I had $491 when I went to the mine and then it told me that I now have $255 (I'm assuming because 255 is the cap on a single variable's value). So I basically lost all of that time spent spamming the fishing :(
Oh, and I see that it says you have a certain number of days to collect the money? I might've missed something but it didn't seem like there was any limit on time. I almost collected the $500 without leaving the first day.